Grant Morrison, and the ‘really simple high concept’ behind Batman and Robin

After a certain point, Grant Morrison’s marathon of interviews covering Final Crisis, “Batman R.I.P.” and, now, Batman and Robin bleeds together, like clips from a Hollywood press junket played endlessly on cable news.

So I sometimes have trouble figuring out what anecdotes are new, and which ones are Morrison chestnuts (not that it matters much, as they’re all entertaining). I’m fairly sure, though, that this interview with IGN.com covers new territory, as it’s the first since Batman: Battle for the Cowl wrapped up last week, and the identities of the new Batman and Robin were (officially) revealed.

Although the entire Q&A is worth reading, I found two quotes of particular interest:

On the accessibility of Batman and Robin: “… I kind of thought, while starting up Batman and Robin, that it was a really simple high concept. The guy who used to be Robin is now Batman, and Batman’s evil son is now Robin. You can explain that to any person on the street and they’re going to get it. It was that simple. Everyone can understand that Robin has now grown up to be Batman. Having just heard our advance orders for the first printing are the highest DC’s had in the last few years, it’s important for me to keep this material accessible — and everyone knows Dick Grayson”

On the recipe for a great Batman villain: “A gimmick. Creepiness. A distinctive look. Basically, you just have to pick something — like I did with the Club of Villains characters — you look at something that works in the Batman mythos, like the evil clown, obviously. You can play with different version of that, so we had the killer mime in the Club of Villains. Or you can have another take on it, like you can play up the grinning death mask aspect and do a ‘Mexican Day of the Dead’ villain. You kind of evolve those themes into new forms. Batman fights people who dress or behave like animals — Catwoman, Killer Croc, Penguin, Man-Bat — sometimes, so you can create your own lizard girls or serpent ladies or guys like my upcoming Flamingo. Then there are the ‘game’ or ‘puzzle’ villains like the Joker, and the Riddler, and there are the ‘Dick Tracy’-style ‘face’ villains like Two-Face, No-Face, etc. Like I said, there’s a set of ingredients that you can play around with to create a Batman villain.”

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7 Comments

Lierson

Jeff

But the simplest things can be the most complicated. No matter how BFTC was going to turn out, there was going to be a considerable amount of criticism due to the publicity stunts of past comic book events. As far as constructing a villain, I am very supportive because while the classic rogues gallery will always be the fallback, there has to be new confrontations to keep the narrative moving forward. The team up of Dick and Damien demands new examinations of the psychology of the characters, which, if keeping with how batman villains were constructed in the past, means that we must begin to learn about how these characters are constructed. While we have an idea of who Dick Grayson is and how he ticks based on his time as Robin and Nighwing, it is an exciting thought about how he will change as Batman. So, Yeah…I’m stoked.

e360

RM

I’ve seen the PornTube video of Grant Morrison ruining Joe Quesada. The part with the feline-o-nine-billion tails is particularly boner-fying. Also, there is a butt plug. And several references to Austin Osmond Spare fellating the psycho-tangible underverse with his tongue proxy.